NEWS
!!!
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March 16, 2000 |
| Nanako Matsushima won a Golden Arrow - best
rookie performance Current idol fave Nanako Matsushima is ostensibly an actress, so it was only natural that last week she won a Golden Arrow, which is given to the best rookie performances. The arrow will look nice next to the other awards she's won in the past six months, among which was something from the jewelry industry and another having to do with "looking good in jeans." more about the New Frontier awards ... source : JapanTimes |
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June 7, 2000 |
| After Majou no Joken is shown on screen, Nanako acting's career had been quite successful. Besides being the female lead in many Japanese Dramas, she is also helping to promote the products of many companies, so she earned quite a lot of money from the advertisements. The tax she had to pay this year came up to about 75 million yen (about S$1.2 million), even more than the tax Takuya Kimura had to pay, which is about 73 million. |
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June 12, 2000 |
| Because of her height and looks, Nanako became
a model easily. She was discovered in high school. TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) actually planned for Takako Tokiwa to be the female lead of Majou no Joken, but she had something on and had to go to Hong Kong. Nanako became the female lead instead. Last year, Nanako won the Best Dresser award 1999. |
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July 1, 2000 |
| Nanako's acting skills will be tested on in her
next Japanese Drama (Hyaku Nen No Monogatari). This TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting
System) Drama will only be three episodes long. Each episode is about two
and a half hours. The story is about the three generations of a woman of a certain family. The Drama is going to be out in August this year. |
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July 13, 2000 |
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Huh..? Matsushima Nanako with Takashi Sorimachi on top of Mount
Kilimanjaro. |
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January 27, 2004 |
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004 at 07:00 JST
A young man with megaphone and poster stands outside a busy drugstore in
Shibuya, promoting Max Factor's latest lipstick product, Kiss. source : JapanToday |
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| Source: The Straits Times, dated 24/2/2001 |
| Thanks to celine_oh from Nanako Matsushima Club |
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February 2, 2001 |
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Japan Academy names nominees "Battle Royale," a controversial film set in the near future that depicts violent anarchy at a Japanese high school, and "Whiteout," a big-budget Hollywood-like action movie, are among the Japan Academy Prize nominees for Best Picture of the Year. The nominees for all 14 categories of the prize were announced at a Tokyo press conference early this week. Other nominees for best picture include "Ame Agaru," based on a screenplay by the late Akira Kurosawa, "Kao" and "15-sai -- Gakko IV." The directors of those films -- Takashi Koizumi ("Ame Agaru"), Junji Sakamoto ("Kao"), Kinji Fukasaku ("Battle Royale"), Yoji Yamada ("15-sai -- Gakko IV") and Setsuro Wakamatsu ("Whiteout") -- have been nominated for Best Director of the Year. The actors nominated for best performance are Yuji Oda ("Whiteout"), Naoto Takenaka ("Sanmon Yakusha"), Akira Terao ("Ame Agaru"), Tatsuya Fujiwara ("Battle Royale") and Koji Yakusho ("Doraheita"). The actresses nominated for best performance are Rena Tanaka ("Hatsukoi"), Nanako Matsushima ("Whiteout"), Yoshiko Miyazaki ("Ame Agaru"), Mitsuko Mori ("Kawa no Nagare no Yoni") and Sayuri Yoshinaga ("Nagasaki Burabura-bushi"). The Japan Academy Prize was established in 1978 to honor those who have contributed to filmmaking in Japan. The nominees were chosen from 40 commercial films screened in 2000 by the 5,084 members of the Nippon Academy-sho Association. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony March 9, 4:30 p.m. at New Takanawa Prince Hotel. source : JapanTimes |
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February 21, 2001 |
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Married : 21 Feb 2001 to Takashi Sorimachi
The couple do not have plans for a reception, but Matsushima said, smiling, "I have worn wedding dresses a number of times in the past for programs, but I would like to be seen in bridal wear -- I don't care whether it's Japanese or Western style -- because I'm sure that the feeling will be different this time." Sorimachi and Matsushima met each other in 98 when they're acting in Fuji TV drama [GTO], in November of that year they started to date. Next year they'll be acting together again in NHK's taiga drama [Rike tomatsu~kaga hyakumanseki monogatari~]. The staff of the program is happy "We want to make it a very happy program with the couple acting together" |
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July 12, 2001 |
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Beverage makers turn to the tea-drinkers in China Commercials familiar in Japan now bombard Shanghai consumers: Japanese actress Nanako Matsushima praises the simplicity of Kirin Beverage Corp.'s Nama-cha in Mandarin; demurely, a computer-modified Audrey Hepburn sips Afternoon Tea.
source : JapanTimes |
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October 24, 2003 |
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Bikini 'campaign girls' exit stage left In a move likely to disappoint aspiring actresses, many major textile firms are abolishing a decades-old advertising tool -- sexy "campaign girls" in bathing suits. Teijin Ltd. has announced it will cease the practice, which it first used in 1970 to pitch its bathing suits. Being a campaign girl, introduced by textile firms each autumn to promote new swimsuit designs for the following summer, has been considered a gateway to showbiz success for many models who landed acting jobs after gaining media attention. Former campaign girls turned actresses include Nanako Matsushima and Kyoka Suzuki. But the fabric industry's efforts to cut costs and diversify have foreclosed on the advertising tactic. Teijin said it is expanding beyond textile operations into other fields, including pharmaceuticals, and its apparel sales now account for only slightly over 10 percent of total revenues. At their peak, clothing textiles accounted for more than 50 percent of the total. A Teijin spokesman said the company now believes continuing ads focusing on swimwear will give the firm an outdated image. Kanebo Ltd. also plans to halt its swimwear campaign girl ads, because bathing suit sales now constitute less than 1 percent of sales for its synthesized-fiber unit. Kanebo was the first textile maker to employ campaign girls, starting in 1968. Kuraray Co. and Toyobo Co. have already abolished the practice. But Toray Industries Inc. said it plans to continue the tradition, and Unitika Ltd. said its campaign girls will start advertising not only its bathing suits but the company's entire operations. source : JapanTimes |
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June 1, 2004 |
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Actress Matsushima, actor Sorimachi have TOKYO — Actress Nanako Matsushima and actor Takashi Sorimachi have become the parents of a baby girl. Matsushima gave birth to a daughter Monday earlier than anticipated, but both are in good health, the couple said in a faxed message sent to the media Tuesday. "We are sometimes at a loss," the message said. "But we are delighted to have a new family member." Matsushima and Sorimachi, both 30, married in February 2001 after they appeared together in a television drama series in 1998. (Kyodo News) source : JapanToday |
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June 2, 2004 |
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Thespians announce daughter's birth Actress Nanako Matsushima and actor Takashi Sorimachi announced Tuesday they are the proud parents of a baby girl. Matsushima gave birth to a daughter Monday, earlier than anticipated, but both are in good health, the couple said in a faxed message. "The new environment may be challenging ," the message said. "But the joy of having a new family member is much bigger and we are looking forward to the life ahead of us." Matsushima and Sorimachi, both 30, married in 2001. source : JapanTimes |
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August 27, 2004 |
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Motherhood the making or breaking of top actresses' careers
Nanako Matsushima, left, and Ryoko Hirosue. For Japan's hottest actresses, having a baby can be a real, well...mother of a task. Two of the country's hottest actresses joined the ranks of motherhood in recent months, but it seems childbirth has had vastly different effects on their respective careers, according to Shukan Shincho (9/2). Nanako Matsushima can barely keep up with the amount of work she's been offered since giving birth to her daughter in May, with her wages also rising significantly. Disgraced queen of the small screen Ryoko Hirosue, however, has become a virtual fallen idol since she had her boy in April with her once packed work schedule now barely filled. "Matsushima was magnificent the way she planned her pregnancy and then slipped off the screens as her due date approached without causing trouble for anybody," Masaru Nashimoto, doyen of Japanese entertainment reporters, tells Shukan Shincho. "She kept working on commercials right up until the moment before she announced her pregnancy. When filming for a tea commercial in Hawaii, she wore clothes that would hide her pregnancy, then for Nikon she was only in shots from the face up. This allowed the companies to air the commercials right about the time Matsushima was attracting attention for announcing her pregnancy. She makes 70 million yen per commercial and worked for four companies during her confinement, collecting a cool 28 million yen even as she was knocked up." Matsushima's planned pregnancy apparently allowed sponsors to work around her schedule and gave her a reputation for being cooperative that has allowed her price per ad to rise to the magical 100 million yen mark. "Matsushima is going back into TV drama from January next year, but things are almost completely the opposite for Hirosue," Nashimoto says. "When Hirosue dropped out of Waseda University and announced she was planning to concentrate on her acting career, the media generally gave her a great write up. Then, just a couple of months later, she announced she was pregnant. Most people thought she was concentrating on her work and wondered what the hell she was thinking. She lost nearly all her commercial jobs then. I don't think there's a company out there that wants Hirosue to be its face now." Perhaps Hirosue's biggest bungle, however, was being forced to give up the lead heroine role in next year's taiga drama on squeaky clean national broadcaster NHK. Taiga drama run weekly for a year, often attracting enormous ratings. But Hirosue's shotgun wedding has apparently harmed her chances of ever being given the chance to appear in a taiga drama again. "On the surface, Hirosue had to turn down the role, but the real reason she didn't do it was because NHK is fed up with her reputation for bad behavior," a showbiz reporter tells Shukan Shincho. "A taiga drama role would be an ideal way for an actress to re-start her career after childbirth, but with Hirosue, it's all come to nothing. NHK will never ask her to work on one of its shows again. Even the private networks aren't too keen to take her on considering the way sponsors are mad at her for her sudden pregnancy. Her acting career is on the line." source : Mainichi Daily News |